Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: John Arcudi
Artist: James Harren
Colourist: Dave Stewart
Release Date: Out Now!!!!
Price: $3.50

What better way to start 2016 than to be totally baffled by a comic book? A definite case of ‘start the year as you mean to go on’ I guess.

Rumble #10 is a veritable ‘curate’s egg’ of a comic, some aspects are brilliant, others confusing at best. The artwork by James Harren is breath taking, a bit like Moebius meets Steve Ditko (if you can imagine such a thing).

James Harren uses clever visual jokes such as a scarecrow-god thing having to come back to collect his head from the snow after a bloody battle and then using a traffic sign to cut off a pig-headed monster’s head. However, despite these delights I was completely stumped when it came to understanding what the deuce was going on in John Arcudi’s storyline.

I fully accept in Rumble #10 it may well be difficult to quickly gain traction in a story where the characters are already well established and the themes have been previously developed but despite this I can’t help feeling that either this comic is way beyond my intellect or the author doesn’t know or care what’s going on. Polite answers on the comments section below this review are, of course, welcome……

Rumble #10 is the final part in the second story arc of Rumble in which there is a fight, an occult ritual of some kind, another fight and then something happens in a hospital. Fans of Rumble will no doubt say I am missing the point and that may well be true, however, there would appear to be little here to reward the first time reader and expand Rumble’s audience.

 

Reviewer: Steve Weller
Reviews Editor: Steve Hooker